Smoking of naturally occurring herbs, tobacco, and other substances is a common occurrence in most countries of the world. However, the actual burning of such materials in a pipe or other smoking accessory is well known to produce carcinogenic by-products as wells as hot gasses.
Vaporization is an excellent alternative to smoking and helps reduce the harmful aspects thereof. Instead of burning the herbs, tobacco, or other products by placing them in the bowl of a pipe, which produces irritating, toxic, and carcinogenic by-products, a vaporizer heats the smoking material in a partial vacuum. This causes the active compounds contained in the plant material being employed to evaporate into a vapor.
Since during the vaporization process, no combustion occurs, substantially no smoke or taste of smoke is evident to or around the user. The exhausted vapor from the vaporizer generally contains substantially no particulate matter or tar. Further, the exhausted vapors, which are of course inhaled by the user, contain significantly lower concentrations of noxious gases such as carbon monoxide.
In use, the vapor is drawn from the vaporizer by negative air pressure created by an inhaling user. The vapor is then inhaled directly through the hose or pipe and communicated to the lungs of the user. In some cases, where the vapor is to be employed at a later time, it may be stored for subsequent inhalations in an air tight container such as a bag or jar.
Another advantage of the employment of a vaporizer, is that little to no smoke is produced. In venues which prohibit smoking primarily due to second hand smoke issues, the vaporizer thus eliminates the problem. Further, the exhausted vapors from a vaporizer are produced at cooler temperatures than smoke from combustion of the same smoked materials.
A particularly useful aspect of employing a vaporizer is that less material is required for the inhaling user to achieve a given level of effect. Thus in cases where herbs are being employed for medicinal use such as treating asthma, or for recreational use such as with tobacco, costs are greatly reduced for the user to buy the raw material for use.
As such, because there is no combustion from burning of the materials, many irritating and harmful effects of smoking are greatly reduced or eliminated. Further, since there is no actual combustion and hence no emitted smoke from a burning bowl, vaporizers are very useful in venues where there are public bans on smoking.
For instance medical marijuana use has been approved in many states of the United States and in foreign countries. A number of modern scientific studies have shown that vaporization as a delivery may be far less injurious to health than smoking over the long term. It has been shown with many medicinal herbs and cannabis, employing a high quality vaporizer will eliminate the majority of undesired compounds in the exhausted vapor.
As such, there is an ever present need for a high quality vaporizer, which may be employed in a portable fashion, for users that wish to reduce the costs of the material they must purchase as well as reduce the potential harm to themselves from the inhaled vapors by eliminating most of the harmful substances that occur during a burning of the material producing the inhaled vapors.
Conventional vaporizers commonly employ an indirect heat source upon the material being vaporized such as a flame or heating element separated by glass or a flat solid metal plate from direct contact. Many such devices employ flammable fuel and are not desirable and the indirect contact with the material being vaporized causes the need to heat a vessel to sufficient temperature to boil the essence from the herbs or other material.
Reasons that the use of a flammable fuel is not desirable include: 1) the combustion byproducts of the fuel are themselves considered harmful and as such, users should not consume these harmful byproducts; and 2) the unburned fuel itself can be a fire or safety hazard, particularly in devices that specifically employ fire or heat. As such, any device employing a burnable fuel must at a minimum support three chambers, each with unique needs and design features: 1) a chamber to store the fuel prior to burning that usually must be pressure and leak resistant; 2) a chamber or space where the fuel is consumed to produce heat that must be fireproof and heat resistant; and 3) a chamber or channel in which the vaporization itself can occur that must be user accessible and cleanable.
Moreover, a direct contact of the heat source with the material being subjected to that heat, if it prevents flame or burning would use less energy and more quickly bring the material to the correct temperature to elicit the vapors. As such, a vaporizer with direct contact of the heat source with the material being vaporized, which does not produce flame or burned material is highly desirable.
It would be further desirable to provide a vaporizer that is capable of instantly heating up in a minimal amount time. In addition, a compact design would allow the user to easily travel with the device without the typical storage concerns. As such, the portable compact unit would need to be robust and not fragile.